Republic of Genoa

The Republic of Genoa was an Italian merchant republic that existed from 1005 to 1797. Genoa was originally a city-state in northwestern Italy, but it would expand to incorporate the rest of Liguria as well as the island of Corsica (1347-1768), and Genoese merchants and sailors created a larger empire that would include several cities on the Levantine coast (during the Crusades), parts of the Crimea, and several cities on the island of Cyprus (1372-1409).

Genoa was a rival of the Republic of Pisa and Republic of Venice during the Middle Ages, competing for control of trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1347, the Genoese conquered Corsica, and Genoa's support of the House of Trastamara during the War of the Sicilian Vespers allowed for the Genoese to trade freely in Sicily. Genoa would remain a naval power until its 1380 defeat at the Battle of Chioggia at the hands of Venice, and Genoa lost its colonies in the Mediterranean. In 1458, Genoa became a vassal of the Kingdom of France due to Alfonso V of Aragon threatening the Genoese, but in 1461 the Duchy of Milan supported a Genoese independence revolt.

In 1464, Milan changed sides and reconquered Genoa for France, and from 1499 to 1528 Genoa was under continual French occupation. In 1528, Carlos I of Spain conquered Genoa during the Italian Wars, and it remained a part of Spain in the following centuries, with Genoese banks prospering from 1557 to 1627. Genoa's golden age would end in 1627 with the Thirty Years' War, when France invaded Italy and besieged the city; in 1684, the French Navy bombarded Genoa during the War of the Reunions, and in 1797 Napoleon Bonaparte's occupation of Genoa forever ended its independence.